Fracking Your Future: Campus Drilling Extends Far Beyond Pennsylvania

But as NPR demonstrated in a recent report, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

“More than a dozen schools in states as varied as Texas, Montana, Ohio and West Virginia are already tapping natural resources on college campuses,” the report explains. “The University of Southern Indiana recently started pumping oil.”

Fracking on Campus a New Fundraising Mechanism, But “You Can't Drink Money”

Fracking on cash-strapped college campuses in these states has become a new fundraising mechanism and a way to pad endowments.

“…[W]e can put the revenue toward encouraging gifts to the endowment,” Kristin Sullivan, a spokeswoman at University of Texas-Arlington told NPR. “This is a finite resource. You have to be very wise about how you allocate that revenue.”

The costs associated with fracking on university grounds, though, go far above and beyond revenue it brings into vastly under-funded schools. The climate and ecological costs are also a huge part of any honest equation.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

Everyday Iowa voters are less likely to caucus for former Texas governor and potential presidential candidate Rick Perry “because of his involvement” with a controversial oil pipeline proposal, according to an influential state lawmaker who has made eminent domain one of his signature issues in the Iowa House of Representatives.

“Politically speaking, I am not sure there is as much upside for him to be involved as there is downside,”...